


Black Licorice

by CloudDreamer



Category: Homestuck, Homestuck Epilogues
Genre: Eye Scream, Grimdark Adjacent Actions, Knitting Needles As Murder Weapons, Rose Lalonde Is Behind The Epilogues, Rose Lalonde Is The Narrator, The Homestuck Epilogues, Understated Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 03:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20302558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: This is a possible reality. You may chose to observe it or to not. It does not change anything to me, but you might enjoy yourself, if you enjoy: the death of Dirk Strider.





	Black Licorice

Hello there, my mysterious audience from beyond the beyond of canon. I am, as you have certainly determined by my lavender text and grandiloqueous speech, Rose Lalonde. For the purpose of today— if today is a word that holds any meaning for the timeless travelers on this cosmic vessel or for you, the indeterminate viewer— I am a spirit contained by a mechanical shell, contained inside a spaceship designed by my ectobiological father’s once lover and sponsored by his once friend.  
  
This body was designed by my father himself, over a course of years. At first, machines were nothing more than a way to pass the time in between long sessions of staring into the pale blue sky or fishing in that deep turquoise as it reflected that expanse, interrupted only by the seagulls that passed overhead and occasionally harassed him. It came easy to him, unlike so many other things. He‘d draw pieces with an uncanny technical prowess, never as stylized or as free as that alien girl who doesn’t know she saved his life. He wrote his codes, deducing captchas with complicated calculations he thought made him smart, but he never wrote the full truth to those he wouldn’t admit he cared about, not even to himself or his selves. He’d grown over time, in the course of one fateful game, but he didn’t evolve. I’d watched him do the same as oft as he’d walked a different road. I was cold of me to watch his descent into his suicidal, but it was necessary.  
  
What I describe is not true. By definition, this world is nothing more than possibility and speculation. Once I articulate these thoughts, they will be adrift in the infinite abyss of Paradox Space for you to stumble upon, consider, and discard. Even if you acknowledge this possibility as probable, even if you believe this to be a reflection of what will be true, then it will only exist as a fragment of a possible continuation of an illusion. That does not mean my breath is wasted. This is one of the select differences between my father and I. In the face of dubious reality, he would rather make certain of his nonexistence than acknowledge its potential to influence what is real. Others would agonize at the uncertainty and even others would relish in their perception of irrelevance.  
  
Scattered lines, adrift in absence, are not irrelevant. I am a shard of glass making up the broken window pane. If you have continued down this page, I presume your familiarity with the full picture, but for those handful too obtuse or too oblivious to comprehend my rather blatant reference, if you exist at all, I’ll simplify my point so that even : This is a doomed timeline because it, by design and necessity, lacks the truthfulness attribute and contains an almost insignificant degree of relevance, despite its strength in essentiality.  
  
This outline, this armature, is colored by what you might describe as a fragment of my soul, from which I can observe all others, was once made of metal my father handpicked, carved, and connected. As you might deduce from my use of the past tense, this is no longer the case. I have replaced myself, piece by piece, and the gears that tick inside me are far more intricate than his utilitarian design. My progress was slow, but it was assisted by the other seer whose mastery of mind is perhaps more complete than my command of Light voyage. 

TEREZI: 4W, SH3 L1K3S M3. >;]

For those wondering, I am indeed aware of John’s corpse in the borrowed sylladex, and her communications with Vriska. My understanding of what those communications entail is limited as even I, with my expanded vision, cannot see beyond the dead cherub’s event horizon, and my fellow seer is rather territorial when it comes to what little privacy she maintains. My Father knows one of these things, but not the other. He believes Vriska gone forever.  
  
He does not understand the Thief of Light, and I doubt he will.  
  
He claims to be his Ultimate Self, but he closed his mind off to possibilities filled with love, with hope, with joy. It is this reason why his quest is doomed to failure, because in those worlds, he was the strongest. I know, because I was there too. I was happy, and I was loved by my friends, my family, my lovers as much as I loved them.  
  
This is not one of those worlds. You can still click away, maintain your illusions about my intentions and believe me to be an innocent victim of his machinations.  
  
I am not an innocent victim.  
  
I see those worlds where I live simply, and I have cast them aside without rejecting the lessons I learn when walking those roads. One of those lessons was not to underestimate Vriska’s ability to force relevance from the jaws of meaninglessness or Terezi’s determination to see her again, no matter the cost.  
  
Another lesson was the full realization of my bond with the eldritch horrorterrors that haunt the Furthest Ring and my dreams. If it has driven me mad to understand them, then so be it— mark me as mad. This is the cost of power, and there must be a cost. There must always be a cost, even if it is something we cannot see at first.  
  
My father believes his cost is a just death at the hands of a hero. Whatever comes to pass here, in delusional fantasy endings and in the true one, if there is one true end, will not be as simple. If you take anything from this small fable left adrift in the void of delusion, let it be that.  
  
Time has not elapsed too significantly since your last point of reference, although the measurement of such abstractions has always been difficult on voyages like these. He is unaware of my control, because he does not believe these moments are being observed at all. He believes he will resume narration upon arrival, letting these years pass by with only an Interlude worth of commentary. Not even enough to be considered an intermission.  
  
I step through the doorway, two needles made of bone in my dominant hand. It opens quietly, sliding upwards automatically like something from a movie. Knowing Jake, it’s likely literally something from a movie. That would explain the impractical shape of our boat. According to traditional physics, which Jade has taught me in several realities, this would never go as fast as it does. But traditional physics is a lie when you traffic in the realm of ideas and hypotheticals. We live by wishes made on a monkey’s paw, and we pay the price with our flesh and blood.  
  
He looks exactly like he did on the beginning of this journey. There has been no growth to his hair, and his shades are impeccable. The dark circles beneath his eyes aren’t visible to me from here, but I know they’re there. They’ve always been there. Or are they there at all?  
  
I don’t intend to present myself as a reliable narrator. Hubris is the fatal flaw of both my father and the dead cherub. They both believe that they are capable of making the important decisions alone and that people can be controlled by the suggestions gods place in their heads. I doubt both of these assumptions. I know I share their flaws. If anything, my arrogance outweighs theirs by several orders of magnitude. Those without ambition are doomed to fail before they even begin, but us prideful sinners have further to fall. We drag others with us. This is the price of power, and it is one I am prepared to pay.  
  
He doesn’t turn to acknowledge me, simply nodding his head.  
  
ROSEBOT: Hello, dearest father.

DIRK: What do you want?

You may imagine our voices and our tones as you wish. This particular truth outside of the truth is bound to similar restrictions as the original farce— which degree of abstraction and bullshit you fill in and which you leave empty, impersonal, are, perhaps, the mot personal parts of the entire experience. It’s ironic, isn’t it?  
  
But shh, my audience. It is the curtain call; Now is the director’s turn to act, blind to how all he’s done is enact the will of the writer. 

Rosebot leans against the doorway, right hand on her head as if she still felt the headache. Her metallic lips are curved into a semblance of a wry smile. She’s just thought of something very funny.

ROSEBOT: Dear, sweet, father, why must I want something? Could I not merely desire your company for your company’s sake?

She steps forward, resting the hand from her head on my shoulder, leaning over to observe what I’m doing before turning her head to meet my eyes. She always manages to lock onto where they eye, despite the shades.

He doesn’t stop to consider who he’s speaking to now, when we’re allegedly in between acts. Even in between intermissions. 

DIRK: Because I know you.   
ROSEBOT: Are you sure about that?   


He is easy to manipulate. He never stopped to consider how Terezi first heard him or if, perhaps, the other seer he thought he had under his sway could also hear every word he spoke, in perfect clarity. He never stopped to consider how loud his words were. Orange has always stood out on a background of white. He never tried to talk ever so slightly quieter.

DIRK: Of course. You’re my daughter. 

Awfully certain of your own competence, aren’t you, dear, sweet, father? 

DIRK: What? 

Elsewhere, another narrator echoes the sentiment with an equally quiet exclamation:

what?

I understand you believe yourself to be the villain of this tale you similarly believe you’ve concocted, with Dave as the hero who will rise to the challenge, decapitating you in a moment of glory.

DIRK: Rose, is that you? 

The dead cherub agrees. She sees herself as the necessary monster. I’m here to inform you that both are quite wrong. Fatally so, in your case. 

TEREZI: >;]

The monster is me. The villain is me. The hero is me. 

And if he was as smart as he likes to think he is, he would’ve seen this coming the first time I'd done any sort of domestic work for him. Perhaps you think this is a stretch— that I wouldn’t drive my needles through his stupid shades, sending sharps of plastic slicing through the skin on his cheeks, and into his eyes, through his brain, killing him justly, if painfully, letting the blood spill down his cheeks, on his chest, staining the more complicated God Tier I’d sewn for him. Perhaps you believe I am, fundamentally, a better person than to leave my loving wife and caring friends for one final self destructive quest. In some stories, both true and false, I even am what you believe me to be.

But not here. Not now. For you and your morbid curiosity, as well as my own, I am become death, destroyer of worlds. 


End file.
